


it's (not) okay to lose your mind

by orphan_account



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Brainwashing, Can be read platonically or romantically - Freeform, M/M, evil pete wentz, joe and andy are only mentioned sorry, pete is a little shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2021-02-23 02:02:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23003983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: He wasn't really sure how Patrick managed to endure him, and still tried his absolute hardest to make things work between them. Pete wasn't on Patrick's side anymore, but his feelings for the singer never died, and clearly that was reciprocated. He didn't want to do anything bad to Patrick. He just wanted Patrick to understand why he decided to go down the road of "evil." Everything would be so much easier, so much clearer, that way.
Relationships: Patrick Stump/Pete Wentz
Kudos: 4





	it's (not) okay to lose your mind

**Author's Note:**

> basically i'm obsessed with the idea of evil pete and decided to write something about him and this is what happened. it's unbeta'd but it should be mostly clear of errors. i hope u enjoy the fic, and comments/suggestions are always appreciated!

Pete glanced over at Patrick, sitting on the hardwood floor against the painted black wall on the other side of the room, and smirked. The younger boy's head was buried in his snow white hands and silent sobs made themselves clear through his choppy breaths. "What?" Pete offered, lifting an amused eyebrow. "Are you sad, Patrick? Or, even better, are you scared?" he watched carefully as the singer's hateful blue eyes peeked through the space in between his bony fingers. Patrick's light brown hair hung in messy strands over his eyes, as if they were intentionally matching the looming darkness he was feeling.

"What would I have to be scared of, asshole?" Patrick spat through painfully obvious tears and a tightly clenched jaw. "You're not gonna hurt me."

"You seem so sure of that," Pete took a step closer to the boy, who shrunk into the wall like a tiny little ball that he could so easily just pick up between his fingers and squeeze until it popped, and its insides littered the room. "But I suppose you're right, in a way. I wouldn't hurt you with the goal of hurting you, but if that has to happen in the process of what I do want to do with you, then so be it."

Somehow, Patrick pushed himself farther against the wall, as if he could phase into it and disappear from existence entirely.

"They don't know that you're here, do they?" Pete asked. Joe and Andy wouldn't have let him come here alone. They would've come with him, while strongly encouraging him not to come at all. They couldn't have known. Patrick just glared up at him, and Pete knew he was right. Even if the younger boy tried to deny it, his expression was a dead giveaway to Pete. He knew Patrick better than anybody in the entire world, and that was exactly why Patrick was right in saying that he wouldn't hurt him. Intentionally, at least.

Of course, he'd hurt Patrick so many times in the past that it was almost physically painful to Pete. His stupid shenanigans that dragged a teenaged Patrick with pajamas and tired eyes out of his mom's house at 3am on a school night and landed either himself or Patrick with a broken bone. The moves onstage that were totally epic in his mind but gave the kid a black eye and a broken nose. The memories were fond. He wasn't really sure how Patrick managed to endure him, and still tried his absolute hardest to make things work between them. Pete wasn't on Patrick's side anymore, but his feelings for the singer never died, and clearly that was reciprocated. He didn't want to do anything bad to Patrick. He just wanted Patrick to understand why he decided to go down the road of "evil." Everything would be so much easier, so much clearer, that way.

Pete knew that this was going to hurt Patrick. It might not hurt physically, but when the day came that he, Joe, and Andy tried to face him, this was going to hurt him when he realized that Pete really had turned his back on him, and not only that, but when he realized that sticking around wasn't even his decision to make; it was Pete's. He wouldn't force Patrick to forgive him, and Patrick probably never would, but that was okay. Patrick would be with him, at least, even if it wasn't close to the way it was before.

"Gabe," Pete called out with a sigh. A tall, masked figure in a red and gold cloak made of silk approached him. "Bring Patrick downstairs while I finish up with Brendon for the day," he ordered. Gabe gave him a quick thumbs up and rushed past him to pull Patrick out of the room. He thrashed about, kicking and punching Gabe wherever he could manage, but Gabe easily took control of the situation and the cries of his former best friend echoed through the large, mostly empty room, and his mind.

Pete stood in silence, now alone. He wanted to crumple to the floor, but the more he let himself cry, the more likely he'd be to fall to his own weakness and surrender, begging for forgiveness. That Pete was gone now. He didn't go running back to what was safe, he didn't let anybody make him weak. He'd done too much of that already. He'd taken control of his life, and now, he was going to make sure that nobody took advantage of him again. If he had to let go of the people in his life who didn't support that, then so be it. He still had Meagan, and while it wasn't all that he wanted, it was all that he needed. That, and the satisfaction of vengeance, should be enough.

He ran an olive skinned hand through his dark hair, neatly straightened and combed back, before reaching down and taking the heart shaped pendant around his neck in his fingers, letting them fiddle with it as they wanted to. Taking a deep breath in, he turned around and slowly walked towards the other large, wooden door at the back of the room. A couple of windows were the only sources of light, the sun peeking through in a striped pattern across the floor. He stopped in one of the streams of light, briefly, and let the sun warm his face that felt so cold and empty, just like everything else in him seemed to. He often questioned if he should've climbed this ladder. Now he didn't want to climb down because he could see the water below that he was preparing to dive into headfirst. He was just preparing for the final leap now, and he could never turn back after that. Nobody would let him back in the house when he was soaking wet. But would he even stop to think about the people he loved after he jumped, or would he be too far gone to possibly be saved?

It all started with a dream. He'd woken up in a field of tall, green grass and flowers surrounding him. There had been a forest encircling the field. It was pitch black there, he couldn't see what was within the pine trees with their dark needles like blades. There was a tiny thunk! on his head and he found the pendant he was wearing now in his hand. He glanced around, searching for the source of the necklace, hoping to return it to its proper owner. It glowed with a power that seemed almost magical. He jumped in surprise when a fairy-like creature in a sparkling white dress that was no bigger than his palm flew towards him. "Hello, Peter," she'd said in a voice that was weirdly low and loud for a being her size. She cut right to the chase. "My name is Lazuli Candlestone. I come from The Infernal Isle to bestow this pendant upon you," she gestured to the necklace in his hand. "It is known as the Pendant of Life, and the Holy Spirits have chosen you to--"

"Woah, woah, woah. Hold up there," Pete held his free hand up to stop her. "What the fuck is 'The Infertile Isle?' And who chose me to what the what?"

The fairy let out a huff of frustration. "First of all, it's The Infernal Isle. Second, The Infernal Isle is a magical realm that dictates the state of the rest of the universe, and it needs six human souls to rule it, and the rest of the universe, with six elements; Heat, Cold, Air, Earth, Love, and Life. That pendant holds the power you'll need to do that. The Holy Spirits, who are sort of like the politicians of your world, have chosen you to hold the Pendant of Life. You won't need to do anything besides wear it, though you can, if you choose. Do you understand what I'm saying now?" Pete nodded. "Good. If you don't wear that pendant for too long, the universe will slowly start to die until the Holy Spirits are alerted and they can find a new host.

"Many folks in The Infernal Isle see the Pendant of Life to be the most powerful of them all. As long as you're wearing it, you can give or drain the life force from any living being. You can also heal and inflict wounds without any physical contact, you cannot be killed, and you can control the thoughts, and therefore the actions, of others, among many things. You could even do those things for or to the Holy Spirits, if you so chose, but not without consequence if it is a negative thing.

"And, lastly, to prove that this is not just any regular dream, when you awaken in the morning, the pendant will be on your nightstand. And I believe that that's everything I have to say. Do you have any questions, Peter?"

Pete gazed down at the pendant in his palm and shook his head no. It was quiet for a long moment, and when he looked back, the fairy was nowhere to be found, and the sun that had been shining on the field before was obscured by the darkest clouds he'd ever seen in his entire life, and rain started to fall in buckets from the sky. As he looked around the field, the flowers rapidly wilted before his eyes and the deep, dark forest surrounding him grew closer and closer to him as trees sprung from the ground like a million jack-in-the-boxes. The wind blew so harshly against him that the rain stung his skin like wasps. Thunder cracked and lightning struck the ground as the grass died and turned an ugly brown. The trees were just feet away from him, and suddenly, everything around him went dark and silent.

It was still. There was no rain, no wind, no storm, no field. Nothing. There was only the trees and the needles that he knew came from them. The only sound was his own heavy breathing for a couple of moments. Then, a laugh echoed from behind him, and he whipped around faster than he ever had in his life, but there was nothing. It hadn't been from his lips, but he recognized that it was his own giggle. He started to hear words spoken all around him, the voices all his own. Pete tried to decipher their words. In a bitter tone, he heard, "I don't need them, anyway." Mockingly, "Are you scared?" Smirking, "Patrick, shoot him." Elated, "Nobody can stop me now!"

When Pete finally shot up in his bed, the pendant was on his nightstand, like the fairy promised. He spent days trying to analyze what the voices all meant. He tried to piece together what was happening, but eventually, he moved on and forgot about that part of the dream.

Now, standing there, his face illuminated by a pale strip of light, he remembered what he'd just said to Patrick not five minutes ago. "Are you sad, Patrick? Or, even better, are you scared?" It all hit Pete like the elephant that had been sitting in the center of the room this whole time collapsed onto his head. It was his own future that he'd heard, and he was making it a reality. And Patrick… Patrick was downstairs, tied down to a stretcher against his will… Pete had channelled some of his power to alter people's thoughts into a spiralling projector screen to strip his victims of their free will entirely and… Patrick was being subjected to that. "Patrick, shoot him," he knew what it meant, and it was already starting while he just sat there, letting it. His best friend's mind was deteriorating, and it was all his fault.

Pete turned around, sprinted across the room, and shoved his way through the door. He padded down the stairs, panting, and ran as quickly as he could down the corridor and kicked the final door separating he and Patrick open. "Gabe, shut it off. now," he demanded. Gabe obeyed, and left the room to head upstairs. He finally felt the tears that had been falling down his face like a waterfall. He jogged over to Patrick and gazed down at him.

The singer's eyes were blank and glazed over, staring right through Pete. A trail of drool had escaped the corner of his lip. To put it simply, he looked dead. In a sense, he was dead. He was practically dead mentally. His breaths were steady, as if he were asleep. Pete laid a hand on Patrick's shoulder and lightly shook him. "Come on, 'Rick. Wake up… Please…" he choked on a sob. If he were to look back on this moment, his tone would remind him of baby Simba from The Lion King when Mufasa died. Begging. Desperate. Fuck, he couldn't take it if Patrick couldn't snap out of this. It was all his fault, he'd abused the power he was given and the Holy Spirits or whatever they were called never bothered to try and stop him before he lost the only person who ever truly understood him.

Patrick was gone.

Gone.

As in probably never coming back. But he was stuck. Patrick couldn't rest in peace because of the mistakes Pete had made, and he couldn't bear to kill the kid himself.

So what did that leave?

A few minutes later, Pete carried Patrick outside the front door of the studio he had bought to be his hideaway and scanned the lot for the younger boy's car. When he found it, he made a quick run for it. He reached in Patrick's back pocket and pulled out his keys so he could unlock the car. He carefully opened the passenger side door, placed Patrick's limp form in the seat, and reached around to buckle him in.

His plan was to drive to Patrick's house, where he figured Andy and Joe were staying, and try to explain the whole thing to them. Hopefully, Joe wouldn't find a gun somewhere and try to shoot him before he could do that. Not that that would do much anyway. It wouldn't be very pleasant, though. He couldn't die, but he could sure as hell feel pain.

A strained groan from beside him ten minutes into the drive was all Pete needed to almost crash the car. He squealed and let out a sigh of relief once he steadied himself on the road. He risked a glance over at Patrick and saw him starting to stir. Five minutes later, Patrick muttered an incredibly slurred, "Where the fuck am I?" his arm "shot out"--- it was more of a sluggish reach--- and hit Pete in the chest. Patrick felt around and his hand ended up in Pete's mouth at one point, but he let the singer do what he needed to. Patrick didn't have very good motor control right now, and Pete was aware of this. He couldn't think very clearly, either, and was probably panicking because of that. One of his eyes was only half open, while the other was shut. Through his half-lidded sight, Pete guessed Patrick couldn't see his face--- not that it would've been comforting if he could.

"Get me outta here," his tongue stuck out between his lips because he probably didn't have the strength to pull it back into his mouth.

Pete spoke. "I'm sorry, Patrick, but I can't. I'm driving. You're gonna be okay, I promise."

Finally, Patrick recognized him. "I don't wanna be with you, you fuckin' stupid piece of shit," he slowly tried to wriggle away from Pete. It hurt, if he were being honest, but it wasn't unwarranted. He had made the younger boy like this, after all. "The fuck did you do to me, Wentz?" his words started to become more formed and he struggled to fully open his eyes. He did, though, and shot Pete a shiteating glare immediately.

"Look, Patrick. You don't have to forgive me for anything, but I'm sorry. I'm so fuckin' sorry that all of this ever happened. I finally realized all the stupid shit I was doing and got you the fuck out of there. I'm taking you home," Pete said.

Patrick's eyes immediately softened. "You're…" he croaked. It was the first clear word he'd spoken since he woke up. "Really sorry? You mean it?"

"Yes, Patrick. Fuck, I mean it. I mean it more than anything I've ever said in my entire life."

Patrick paused and looked away. His hand reached out, with more control now, and he rested it on top of Pete's, on the gearshift. He gazed back at Pete, and smiled. Pete's heart melted. He knew he'd earned the singer's forgiveness. It was the same smile he'd given Pete when he'd overdosed on his anxiety meds all those years ago. He remembered that he was a sobbing mess, worried his best friend would be so angry and never forgive him. Patrick had smiled so softly, with tears in his eyes, and said, in the most gentle tone he'd ever heard, even now, in all his almost 40 years of existing, "It's okay, Pete."

Now, ten years later, Patrick sat, slouched in his seat beside him, and gave him the same smile. It told Pete that he'd really fucked up, but that he was always going to be right by his side. Now, in a voice that was even gentler than it was ten years ago, Patrick whispered, "I knew you were still in there," he sniffled and added, "Joe and Andy thought you were gone, but I knew you'd come around. You always do. Not that it's ever been like this before," he chuckled, but it sounded more like a wheeze.

By that point, Pete didn't care if Joe and Andy forgave him. He had Patrick on his side again, and that was all he needed to be satisfied for the rest of his life.


End file.
